The Last Time
by SilverFallen
Summary: Second Generation Naruto OCs/RPCs.


My mother and I always used to giggle when strangers pointed out how we looked alike. I loved to think I looked like her. Oddly enough, I never envied my siblings for actually looking like her. I didn't envy the way Heishi had her eyes and hair, or Tsukikyo had her round, pretty face with the dark blue eyes. I didn't envy Kei who was almost an exact replica of mom, but with darker hair and dad's eyes. I didn't envy Katsu for his full-on Nara appearance and attitude. And I didn't envy Chisei either, even though he had her blood running through his veins.

I was just content to have been taken in and loved by her. She was my mother just as much as she was Chisei's or Heishi's. I was her first son with Sasuke, but I also wasn't. Heishi and I always used to tease each other about which one of us was their first son. Being eight years older then him, I always let him win. He's my baby brother, even as a grown adult. But he was also the one that grew up first, and the quickest. It was just his personality to be older then his age. He was a child prodigy. It fit him, being that he was named after his prodigal uncle; Heishi Itachi Uchiha.

It was Heishi and I who took over when mom got sick. Dad started spending all his time with her, so Heishi and I took care of our younger siblings. Heishi was only thirteen and he was already an adult. But, he was also a member of ANBU by that time, so he was matured far beyond his age.

It was Kei that found her unconscious the first time.

"Isuma!" I could hear her crying out for me before she was in the room. She ran to me and latched onto my leg, crying. She was only five at the time. I was twenty-one.

"Kei, what's wrong?" I asked, stroking her dark hair.

"M-mommy's… not breathing," She said through her tears.

My eyes widened and I ran to my mother's room. I found her lying on the floor and, just as Kei said, not breathing. That was the first time I gave my mom CPR. When she started breathing again, I took her to the hospital. The doctor would tell me the worst thing I'd ever heard in my life.

I was the first one to know that my mom had lung cancer.

When I brought her home a few hours later – she refused to stay in the hospital; she had a family to take care of – the whole family was aware of the incident. Mom acted as if nothing happened though; she cooked dinner, refusing everyone's help and whenever one of the younger kids asked, she claimed to have been tired and fallen asleep on the ground, missing her bed.

Dad pulled me aside after dinner. "What did the doctors say?" He asked, glancing back into the kitchen where mom and the other kids were cleaning up.

I bit my lip and looked at the ground. Dad waited silently. He didn't probe me at all, but his eyes burned into my skull, begging for an answer.

"Mom's got cancer," I finally said as quietly as I could, so as to keep the kids from hearing.

Dad heard me, and his eyes widened. He looked towards my mother. I looked two.

She was thirty-six years old; so for a ninja, she was getting up there. Her bright-red hair had a few gray streaks in them, and her face had grown tired and worn, no doubt from years of stress. But her eyes were still brilliantly blue and filled with life. She scooped up Chisei and held him up by the sink, where he blindly dunked his hands into the water, then pulled out a plate, smiling the whole time. She kissed his head and he laughed, blushing. Gently, she held his wrist, which held a rag, and whispered what he should do into his ear as she gently moved his hand in a circular motion over the plate. She whispered praises to him, even though he missed a large chunk of food. He was more then content to just be with her. He lived for her praise. And she seemed absolutely fine. Had I not known, I would've been as blind as Chisei was, but to her tumor.

Mom refused to get chemo or anything like that. She took some medicine, but she didn't go to any special doctors or anything like that. She didn't trust doctors, at all. That came from years of hiding as a criminal. She also believed doctors didn't know what they were talking about anyways.

"I've lived thirty-years longer then the first set of doctors believed I would," Mom said, referring to the fire that killed her siblings. The doctors, at the time, had expected her to never be able to talk again, as well as only living another year or so. They had been wrong. She believed those doctors were wrong, so these current ones were wrong too. She'd been coughing up blood ever since she was a teen, so she didn't see it as a sign that anything was wrong.

"Shizuka, this is cancer we're talking about," Dad said as the three of us sat around the table. I was an adult, so I was included in the conversation – despite mom's hesitation. "You need to get it taken care of! Think about the kids!"

"I am! What will they think when mommy has to go to the doctor all the time and they see all the side-affects of the chemo?" She said stubbornly, frowning at my father. He frowned back, and I watched sadly. She didn't want to scare the kids; that was her main argument. I didn't blame her. Chisei was four; he wouldn't understand and he would probably be terrified.

So, mom didn't do chemo-therapy. Once a week, I attempted to heal her lungs and clean them out. And for a while, it worked. She was fine for over a year, with me as her personal nurse. She was herself again. For a little while at least.

I watched, under the tree as Chisei and Kei ran around, playing tag. Despite his blindness, he was more then capable of keeping up with his sister. He could hear her laughing, her feet stomping against the ground. He knew where she was, just by her sounds. He had extra help too, we learned later on. Eventually we would discover he was a chakra sensor, and could tell where Kei was through her chakra. But for now, it was more then enough to know that he was capable of functioning like a normal child.

He was five-years old; the age we assumed I was when mom and dad found me and adopted me many years ago. He loved mom immensely. The same way I had admired her and dad for taking me and caring for me, even though they had hardly known me. He was a momma's boy.

Kei was daddy's little girl; though she was hardly a little girl at all. She played in the mud and wrestled with boys her age. She couldn't be caught dead in pink or a skirt. I was more of a girl then she was. She was like mom in that way. I would say that she was most like mom, but there was so much of mom in every one of them.

As I watched them play tag, I was aware of mom walking out of the house and up the hill towards us. I thought nothing of it, until Chisei stopped dead in his tracks, then ran towards her, right as she collapsed.

"Mom!" He cried out, shaking her arms as Kei ran over too, eyes widen with horror.

"Move Chisei," I said, kneeling down next to her. Chisei moved and Kei immediately latched onto him. I busied myself with trying to figure out what was wrong, but really, I knew. It was her lungs. The tumor was getting out of control.

"Go home," I told my youngest siblings as I picked up our mother. They ran home, terrified, as I carried her to the hospital, running as fast as I could. I'd spent my life trying to become the best medical ninja I could. I had trained under both Sakura and Tsunade. I was one of the best. But I still wasn't good enough. I still couldn't save my mother.

I handed her over to the doctor, then sat outside and waited. We had been okay for a year. I became afraid that things were going to go downhill form this point on. Which they did.

"She's got, roughly, a year to live," The doctor would tell me almost an hour later. A year. She had a death sentence now. She would only be thirty-eight. Chisei would be six years old, and motherless. I'd been down that road before, and I did not want that to happen to my baby brother.

"Is there anyway to prevent it?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"We can try to remove the tumor, but it might be too big by now. Our best option would be chemotherapy. Or we could try to implant new lungs, but that would be very risky. There's about a fifty-percent survival rate for the surgery and the recovery would depend on if her body even accepts the new lungs."

I knew she would not approve of any of these. She was too stubborn. She wouldn't admit that she needed help. She wouldn't admit that she was dying.

I didn't want to admit she was dying, but somehow, I knew I had to. My mother was dying. The woman that had taken me in and given me life, was losing hers.

"I'll have to talk to my family about it," I said quietly, turning away from the doctor. I walked into her room and watched her sleep. She looked peaceful.

I walked over to her bed, and took her hand into mine. The first time I had held her hand, hers swallowed mine up, warming it and protecting it, the same way she had taken me home, fed me a real sandwich, gave me my first bath and then wrapped me up in blankets on her bed. I had never slept in a bed before. She had protected me and loved me as if I was her own child. And for the rest of my life, I would be grateful.

Because she had protected me, I had promised to protect her. That's why I became a medic nin; to protect my family. But I hadn't been able to protect her. She was dying.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said softly, my voice cracking slightly. I kissed her knuckles, then held her hand the rest of the night. I couldn't fall asleep. I stayed awake the whole night. Staying with her.

The next morning, I took her home, keeping my arm around her shoulder the whole time.

"When did you get so tall?" She asked me. I was only three inches taller then her – she had shrunk in the past year or so – but it was still enough.

"Not sure, Mom," I said quietly. I wasn't in the mood for talking. I stared straight ahead as we walked, fighting back tears that were stinging my eyes.

"I'm not dead yet, Isuma," She said softly. "Don't start crying."

I looked over at her, shocked, and found her staring back at me. Her face was serious, yet warm. Motherly. That's the only way I can describe it. She was still trying to protect me, even though I was twenty-two.

"The doctors said you have a year to live, Mom," My voice cracked and I felt the hot tears roll down my cheeks.

She whipped the tears from my eyes and kissed my cheek. "Don't you believe in me Isuma? I've got a family to take care of. I'm going to be around a lot longer then that sweetie."

But, despite her words, by the next month, she was coughing up blood over very basic things. Before, it used to be from fighting or exerting herself too much. But soon, it became that she would cough up blood for any given reason. Her lips would be stained red, like she was wearing lipstick. But she wasn't. It was her blood that gave her lips that red tint.

"Isuma, pass the corn, would yah?" I passed the corn over to Katsu before he had the chance to call me troublesome.

"Mommy! Stop hogging the bread!" Kei giggled as she latched onto mom. With a smile, mom popped a piece of bread into Kei's mouth, then kissed her head. She was having one of her better weeks.

"Chisei, what would you like to eat?" Heishi asked, sitting beside our youngest brother, ready to serve him food. I could see Chisei going over the smells in front of him; trying to figure out which smell connected to which food. His blind eyes stared straight ahead, at me, and I stared back at him. He was so young and innocent. What would happen to him, if mom died?

I cursed myself for the thought. Mom wasn't going to die. She had a family to take care of. She had little children to take care of. She was too stubborn to give up just yet. She was too in love with life. Later, I would learn she hadn't always been this way, and that when she was a teenager, she had been suicidal. But we had changed that. Ever since us, her kids, she had grown to love life. Dad however, would not find a way to live without her. Even with us.

"Isuma! Heishi!"

We both broke from out conversation to look over at Katsu, who was still trying to catch his breath from his sprint towards us. He didn't need to tell us what was wrong though; we could see it in his eyes; Mom.

I ran from the room, then down the hall, in the direction Katsu had pointed. I didn't know what was racing faster; my legs, my heart, or my mind. I was a whirl-wind of panic. Mom's not dead. She's not dead. She can't be dead! Not yet!

I found lying on the floor in the hall, face-down. Her long-hair, getting grayer and grayer, was sprawled over her face. I couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. I brushed her hair away, then froze, horrified. From her mouth, a pool of blood spilled out.

As I healed her, Heishi and Katsu ran over, with dad behind them. I looked up at him – I believe I had for reassurance, but what I saw in his eyes made my heart drop. He was horrified.

We ended up buying our own medical kid that we brought home and set up beside mom's bed. The doctors had wanted to keep her in the hospital for a week, but she stubbornly resisted. Again, and again, she told us she had a family to take care of.

But for the next, roughly, three months, her family would be taking care of her.

After a month and a half, she would be too frail and weak to walk. She would be stuck in bed for the last two months of her life.

"Tsukikyo, can you bring this to mom?" I asked my younger sister, handing her a bowl of soup. She was twelve years old, but she acted much older. She had matured too quickly. Just like Heishi.

"Okay, niisan," She said quietly. She turned to leave, but I stopped her. Gently, I brushed her jet black hair out of her face, so I could see her eyes. She looked up at me sadly, no longer the spunky little girl I had once known. Now, she was a teenager, living with death. She turned away from me, and walked to mom's room.

I wanted to take her pain away. I was her big brother; I was supposed to protect her. But I couldn't. I had failed her.

I followed her to mom's room, and watched as she set bowl down on the table besides our mother's bed. Mom reached over and gently touched her face, whispering soft, motherly words. They stayed that way for a while, talking. Mom would smile and Tsukikyo would smile back, but she would be crying. Before Tsukikyo left, mom kissed her forehead and squeezed her hand.

Then Tsukikyo walked out, closing the door slightly. I opened my arms for her, and a moment later, wrapped my arms around her tightly, as she cried into my chest.

"I don't want mom to die," She cried, holding onto my shirt tightly.

"I don't either, sweetheart," I said, blinking away my own tears as I ran my hand through her long hair. "I don't either."

In the end, it would be little Chisei who would find mom, not breathing. Heart not beating. Chisei would be the first to know mom was dead. I would be the second.

"Niisan," He said quietly, shaking. "Mommy's frozen."

She didn't understand that mom was dead. I told him to go play with Kei, then walked into my mother's room.

She looked peaceful at last. She had died in her sleep. She looked like she was still sleeping. When I placed my hand under her nose, I felt no breath. Slowly, I placed my head on her chest. I could hear no heartbeat. She was finally gone.

Something inside me broke, then spilled out. I wrapped my arms around her frail body, and cried into her chest, for the last time.


End file.
